Fibre Infrastructure Helping Organisations Up Their Game in the Rapidly Evolving Industry

From coin-operated arcade games to the giant “brown box” to sleek multiplayer consoles and 1080p graphics, the evolution of gaming has dramatically improved the gameplay experience. Today’s gamers expect quick and responsive games built with impressive and crisp displays, immersive storylines and of course, more stakes and greater competition.

Gaming organisations have to push the limits of technology or risk losing the battle to the competition. New platforms, virtual reality and multiplayer battle arenas continue to advance the gaming industry in exciting ways. The popularity of eSports only adds to the momentum with an anticipated half a billion people engaging in some form of gaming competition this year. What’s more, there are no signs of this upward trajectory slowing. In fact, the gaming industry surpassed the film industry in revenue last year, bringing in over $43 billion US dollars and is expected to be worth over $90 billion US dollars by 2020.

Cloud is Changing the Game

Like the film industry, the gaming industry has introduced subscription-based streaming business services similar to Netflix or Hulu. Although both the business model and technology have a long way to go to compete with consoles and PC-gaming, the future of cloud-based gaming is promising. Webscale and gaming leaders have recently announced their forays into gaming-as-a-service, which will offer gamers on-demand access to games without an expensive console or PC. To provide the experience gamers get with their high-end hardware, gaming organisations that are introducing cloud-based gaming are having to up their game in terms of high-performance infrastructure.

Level-up Your Communications Infrastructure

As gaming organisations scale, introduce mobile platforms, integrate new AR/VR technologies and move to the cloud, they are focused on the most compelling games – and the most advanced infrastructure to power them. Here are the five most important upgrades gaming organisations are evaluating and making:

More Network Capacity: Given the graphics-intensive nature of gaming, a high capacity backbone is vital to support creation and delivery of high resolution content. Gaming organisations are expanding their data centre and cloud footprints and upgrading their networks, adding fibre for capacity and security. Zayo’s expansive fibre network, with connections to thousands of buildings, data centres, stadiums and event venues, is ideal for the bandwidth-intensive gaming industry.

Lower Latency: Nothing is worse for a gamer, especially in a multiplayer environment, than lag. While internet connections make a big difference to the user experience, gaming organisations are doing their part by moving content to the edge via the cloud, colocation and CDNs. Utilization of low latency networks, such as Spread Networks by Zayo, can also help ensure a fast gaming experience.

Expanded Data Centre Footprints: Leading gaming and esports organisations are expanding their data centre space to deliver games to players and fans. In addition to relying on large metro data centres, organisations are also turning to edge locations so content is closer to the end user. Zayo has a portfolio of data centres across North America and Europe, with a number of cloud-enabled facilities.

Dedicated Cloud Connections: Gaming as a Service is only as good as its connections to cloud. To optimize end-user performance and support business operations, gaming providers are opting for dedicated connections to the public cloud, including AWS and GCP. Our CloudLink service provides dedicated connectivity across dark fibre, wavelengths, ethernet and IP solutions, including pre-provisioned network connections.

Network Diversity: Consistent, reliable network performance is the name of the game. That’s why media and gaming organisations are adding diversity or triversity to their networks. Zayo offers many physically separate, redundant routes that can complement your primary network.

The future of gaming promises new types of games, more competition and a gaming experience that continues to get better, faster and more affordable. Behind any successful gaming organisation is a robust fibre infrastructure. Zayo is helping gaming organisations architect the right solution to ensure it’s always “game on.”